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Tuesday, 10 March 2015

On depression, “coping”, and puking in the shower.

I was interviewed in the Guardian the week before last (you
might have read it, I’m the lady who smells sewage), and the feedback I’ve had
from that piece has been absolutely fantastic.There was a great interaction with the people who commented, I *nearly*
got on the telly about it, and then I had to spend a few days battling with
both my conscience, and the Daily Mail, who want to take pictures of me looking
sad whilst holding a bottle of perfume in the name of awareness raising. In the
end, my conscience won out, andI will
not be looking sad in the Daily Mail any time soon, you may (or indeed, may
not!) be pleased to hear. Sorry mum!

I’ve also had a million emails to respond to, and I’m slowly
working my way through them, each one, whether it has been a message of
support, or the sharing of a tale similar, or even the offer of some well-meant
(if occasionally slightly wonky, medically-speaking) advice, or just some kind
words from an expert in a related field has been gratefully received, and I’m
slowly working my way through replying to all of them.Hopefully by the end of the week.

As a result of all this activity, I’m a bit knackered.After a good couple of weeks on the smell
front (or what passes for good for me, anyway) there was a new wrinkle this
weekend.I’d thought for a while that
our towels were “smelly”, because whenever I washed my hair, and unwrapped it
from the towel, my hair would smell awful.Turns out it’s not the towels. I
discovered on Sunday, via the unlovely medium of puking in the shower when
washing my hair, that it is actually the smell of my own wet hair that is the unpleasant
thing, and that the effect is getting worse.If nothing else, being in the bathroom when you are parosmic is never
boring!

The irony here is killing me.I have a condition that makes me paranoid
about how I smell (because, generally, I can’t smell myself at all), but the
act of physically getting clean makes me sick.Brushing my teeth makes me gag so regularly (even with the cinnamon
toothpaste) that I barely even notice it now unless it’s spectacular, and now my own wet hair smells like burning shit.If I let my hair air-dry it smells bad for
hours (I have a LOT of hair), but HOT wet hair, under a hairdryer for
example?Oh my.Don’t even go there.Seriously. Don’t.

I have not taken to this new discovery well.After a week or so of people telling me I’m
“coping” so well – because I can make jokes about my condition on the internet
– Sunday’s discovery brought both sorrow and completely unexpected rage.And I definitely did not cope with that well, ending up in a Facebook ANGER
RAMPAGE of HULK SMASH proportions towards a completely innocent party, for
which I’m still feeling guilt and shame and at a loss how to fix the
situation.And I’m still sad.And angry.And guilty and ashamed.I’m all
of those things (and grieving, and depressed, and just plain really fucking
confused, and there’s a tonne of stuff I’m feeling that I can’t even name, I
suspect) and, for once, I’m not sure which one is the worst. Life is currently
a perfectly blended whirlpool of crap, with me at the epicentre wondering how
the hell that happened, and where to start the painful business of cleaning up after myself.If you got spattered, I’m desperately
sorry.Truly, I am.

I haven’t really talked about my depression on here because
it is painful, and I am still working it through.I admit that I have been incredibly lucky in
that both my employers and my medical support team have taken me and my
condition seriously, and have allowed me space and time to deal with it
alongside giving me the support I need in order to continue trying to get
through it all. After a good-smelling,
and relatively happy couple of weeks, (I discovered a bacon I can eat!It doesn’t taste much like bacon, but by god,
it’s better than it was!) my weekend was a painfully unhappy reminder that,
actually, I do still have a serious, and limiting condition, and yes, I am still depressed, no matter how “funny”
I can be on the topic at times.I have
so many “coping mechanisms” in place these days that sometimes I forget that
life wasn’t always like this, I’ve almost come to accept that how I live now is
the new normal, in effect.So, when just
one of those mechanisms has a fail, it seems like a much bigger disaster than maybe
it should be.For you a bad smell in the
shower probably means you need a plumber – for me, a new symptom, and yet
another thing I have to find a (possibly permanent) change to my life in order
to minimise, then an anger/grief cycle all over again.And, whimsically irrational though I can be
even at the best of times (ask me about facecreams in pots, I dare you, or
mention the words “chemical free” or “homeopathy” within my hearing, if you
want to hear me being totally rationally irrational), I do NOT like being this sort of irrational, at all.

So no, I don’t always “cope well”.Some days, like Sunday, I’m barely hanging on
by the fingernails I can no longer paint because of the smell, and I can be
rather emotionally … incontinent … as a result. Facebook friends, beware the
black puppy, it’s the sign that things are not well in Lippie-land.

Most days, I’m simply “coping”.Not well, not badly, just “coping”. Because I have to.It is what you do.There are people coping with worse things
than my problem all over the place, but this is my burden, and it’s a bigger
one at times than I ever expected. Coping is what I HAVE to do. At this point,
coping is almost a hobby, much as it may well be for anyone with a
life-altering medical condition.

The alternative is not, frankly, an option. Parosmia passes, this I know.And things are getting better.This I also know, and can quantify.But here was a time when I didn’t know any of
that, and I did, genuinely, give consideration to not coping. I am not going to go back to that place.I can’t.September and October last year were an incredibly dark time, but it
passed, as will how I feel today, and so will my condition. But in the meantime,
as I wait for my long recovery period to get to its destination, I will make
jokes about parosmia.I will campaign
about it.I made the tough decision to
publicise my condition as a way to possibly help others who felt as alone, and as
bleak, as I did when this happened, and, whilst that is tough (I will happily
talk to anyone about anything, except if it is something I really have
feelings, as opposed to mere opinions, about), I do itbecause it is IMPORTANT.And I
will attempt to give myself a break when the days are bad, and coping fails, as it occasionally inevitably must. Sometimes
that’s the hardest thing of all to deal with, the failing, and I am not good at dealing with the overspill.

But, if nothing else, my in-box this last week or so has
proved that my campaigning, and blogging, and even my joking is important to
more people than just myself, and the emails and texts I’ve had has proved it in
spades, over and over.And for that, I
am grateful, so I’ll keep on coping no matter how shitty my hair smells.The towels, however, are going on a
boil-wash.

3 comments:

I don't know you, but, I would like to encourage you not to be so hard on yourself for losing it every now then. Having a chronic illness is hard. I have phantosmia among other things.

You're right about the grief cycles. I have had a lot of practice with grief from having a severely disabled 29 year old daughter. Grief can be tiring, and like an unwelcome houseguest sometimes. When I don't grieve effectively I get depressed. Bouts of grief pass quicker for me if I don't try to run from it and acknowledge my pain. Sometimes I have to verbalize (yep, I talk to myself) "I'm so sad, I never imagined my like would be like this. This hurts." Depression always fools us into thinking things will always be bad, but it is simply not true.

It sounds like you're an artist too. If you can't paint right now, can you draw? Creativity has been therapeutic for me.

I am sorry, I don't usually give advice. Your post got to me. I just want you to know you won't always feel this way. You will figure out your own best way to cope. You are obviously very smart. Please be kind to yourself, you're worth it.

I am so glad I have stumbled upon this! I'm 24 and have genuinely thought I've been going insane; is wasn't until a couple of months ago that I got diagnosed with parosmia... And can I just say it is bloody weird! Just plain weird! I've been told it's due to a bout of the flu I had a few months prior to my diagnoses . At first the smells where really getting me down, for example the smell of cigarettes would be as if a cat was pissing right under my nose. I found it a very difficult condition to describe to people and usually they say the same as me 'thats just bloody weird' but as time as gone on I'm learning to cope with the distortion, and at times, even find it ridiculous myself . Your are so right when you say the bathroom is never boring; steam smells like burning which still often rings alarm bells as I convince myself the house is on fire. Oddly, also, my own sweat has the most bizarre smell, which I can only describe as melting plastic! Anyway, even though I'm a couple of years late reading your diary I am very happy that I have . There is something so powerful about sharing your experience with others and making them feel less isolated even though it's words on a page I really feel better in myself , so thank you!

Thanks for shearing about this I thinks its very hopeful post and very important post for us.thanks for your great and helpful presentation I like your good service.I always appreciate your post.dealing depression

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About Me

I am Louise Woollam. A makeup obsessed accountant by day. Multi-Jasmine Award nominated fragrance writer (now suffering from a little-known olfactory disorder) running The Parosmia Diaries by night. I am also allegedly the "brains" behind Get Lippie at weekends. It keeps me out of trouble. Sometimes

Want to get in touch about anything you see here? Then just drop an email to me at louise@getlippie.com I'd love to hear from you.